A surprise text ended Thursday a prosecutor’s questioning of a former Las Vegas-area politician on trial in the Murder of a seasoned investigative journalistafter a long day of sometimes disjointed testimony during which the accused declared that he had never killed anyone.
In a silent courtroom, before a captivated jury with a murder conviction on the line, prosecutor Christopher Hamner asked defendant Robert Telles to read a message showing that Telles’ wife was wondering where he was at the time the journalist Jeff German was ambushed and killed outside his home nearly two years ago.
“He said, ‘Where are you?’” Telles replied.
Telles testified earlier that he ignored several text messages, emails and voicemails while he was home, went for a walk and then to a gym the day German was killed. Prosecutors suggested he left the phone at home while he carried out a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.
Hamner focused on phone records presented Wednesday by a defense witness that contained no record of the message from Telles’ wife. The prosecutor said the message was found separately, on his Apple Watch.
KM Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool
On Thursday, Telles admitted that as the owner of the phone, he could have deleted the message. He did not admit to doing so.
Hamner noted that the time — 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2022 — was the time when security video shown to the jury earlier showed a brown SUV that Telles said looked exactly like his own in German’s neighborhood. It was driven by a person wearing an orange outfit and a large straw hat. Telles himself repeatedly referred to that person as German’s killer on Thursday.
Where Telles was when German was fatally attacked has been a key question since the trial began — including during Telles’ unusual two and a half hours of live testimony.
Telles, a former Democratic administrator of a Clark County office that handles unclaimed estates, has spent nearly two years in prison since his arrest in German’s murder. He denies killing German and faces life in prison if convicted.
He will return to the witness stand Friday for rebuttal questioning from police detectives he cited in his testimony, a second round of self-guided testimony and possibly another round of follow-up questioning by prosecutors.
His lawyer, Robert Draskovich, said Thursday that no additional witnesses were planned for the defense.
Both sides said they expected closing arguments to take place Monday, two weeks after jury selection begins.
Draskovich signaled a behind-the-scenes breakdown with his client Tuesday, when he obtained permission from the judge to let Telles testify “by way of narration.” That departed Draskovich from the usual question-and-answer format.
Draskovich did not explain why the decision was made to have Telles testify by narrative, but sources at CBS affiliate KLAS-TV said it could happen when a defense attorney feels uncomfortable or concerned about that defendant’s testimony.
Telles told the jury that he had been “framed” for German’s death by a real estate network of the “old guard” political and social figures who resisted his efforts to combat corruption in his office.
“The way Mr. German was murdered … speaks, I think, to something or someone who knows what they’re doing,” he testified. “You know, the idea that Mr. German had his throat slit and his heart stabbed.”
“I’m not the type of person who would stab someone,” Telles said at the end of his monologue Thursday. “I did not kill Mr. German. And that’s my testimony.”
Telles is accused of plotting to kill German, 69, a respected journalist who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Sin City, after German wrote several articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a county bureau in turmoil under Telles’ leadership.
Those articles also included allegations that Telles had a romantic relationship with a female employee. Telles admitted for the first time Thursday that those reports were true. German was working on another report about the relationship when he was killed.
German had written four articles about Telles’ alleged hostile behavior in the office. The reporter was the first to learn of the toxic workplace allegations by four female Clark County employees.[Telles] “He was a horrible, horrible human being,” one of the women, Rita Reid, told “48 Hours” earlier this year. “Monster is the right word.”
Telles, 47, is an attorney who practiced civil rights before being elected in 2018. His law license was suspended after he was arrested several days after German’s killing. He lost his bid in the 2022 Democratic primary for a second term.
Hamner and prosecutor Pamela Weckerly rested the prosecution’s case Monday after four days, 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video evidence.
Asked by Hamner on Thursday, Telles said he could not explain how or why his DNA was found under German’s fingernails. Autopsy photos show stab or cut marks on German’s arms that police believe came from German’s fight for his life.
Telles said he did not know how the people he accused of conspiring to frame him for murder were able to plant key pieces of evidence in his home, including cut pieces of a large straw hat and a gray athletic shoe. Similar items were carried by the person in orange captured on neighborhood security video near German’s home before the journalist was ambushed and left dead.
Hamner acknowledged that two key pieces of evidence were never found: the orange work shirt and the knife used to attack German. He wondered why the people who wanted to frame Telles left them out of the evidence inventory.
“Why didn’t they plant the murder weapon in your house?” Hamner asked. “Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know,” Telles replied.
